After working with a few companies now, I have seen various Salesforce and Marketo combinations. Each one has its unique characteristics, workflows, and record types. In the end, few things are truly unique, except in how each is managed.
I am continually surprised at how few firms are taking advantage of SFDC Campaign Hierarchies. Even if you have Revenue Cycle Analytics or are using Marketo Programs full capabilities, someone in your firm is using Salesforce as the database of record.
So why use Salesforce Campaigns and the hierarchy feature?
Easy. Using campaign hierarchy lets you do several key things faster if your SFDC Administrator has done her job:
- Group campaigns by channel, year, or whatever makes sense for your firm.
- Roll up campaign data to quickly see totals, averages, and metrics directly in Salesforce. So if you click on Webinars 2012, Salesforce instantly tells you the total count on Leads, Contacts, Conversions, Opportunities, Costs, and Won dollars.
- Grouping campaigns makes it easy to see what you have already done this year and in other years.
- Grouping campaigns can make your dashboard or report creation easier.
- You can clone Campaigns more easily for each type of campaign, even when you use Marketo Programs. Why? You’ll know where they all are.
Here’s my Quick Guide to Using SFDC Campaigns. [pdf]
Update 2025:
I know many marketers are still looking at SFDC Campaign Hierarchy to solve attribution reporting questions or placing the Asset as the Parent and the Children are Channels. Yes, you can do this. Is it best practice for attribution? Not really. I strongly urge you to consider a Response Object based approach to attribution using custom objects or edits to the SFDC Member Object. You can continue whatever hierarchy you feel like using, just know that’s not going to support a real model of the journey.
